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THE AGE OF LOGIC
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In the body of Prabhācandra's writings the above discussions are loosely joined to what is directly said by way of commenting on the text concerned. This is particularly true of Nyāyakumudacandra which was supposed to throw light on Akalarka's difficult (often obscure) utterances but which did not do much of the sort. A glaring example is Prabhācandra's commentary on Akalanka's famous verse 'jñānam adyan matiḥ sanjñā cinta cābhinibodhikam etc'. Here 'matih' was a wrong reading for smrti'. (Vidyānanda has the correct reading) and yet Prabhācandra had no difficulty in commenting on it and in the course of it in attributing an arbitrary meaning to the phrase "jñānam adyam'.51 As a matter of fact, the part of Nyāyakumudacandra directly explaining the meaning of Laghiyastraya is a very small part of the whole. Of course, to some extent the same sort of high-handedness was exhibited by Vidyananda while commenting on Tattvārthasutra, but then Tattvārthasūtra was after all an old work and on the whole Vidyānanda's comments were true to the spirit of the original text. In any case, Nyāyakumudacandra is to be studied not so much for the sake of light it throws on Akalanka's words as for that of the independent philosophical discussions it incorporates. As a matter of fact, this feature distinguishes Nyāyakumudacandra from the commentaries on other works of Akalanka composed by other authors. These latter too contain a lot of incidental discussion but it is less systematic; similarly, their authors evince great keenness to get at the meaning of Akalanka's words - one reason for it being that the works they commented on were definitely more difficult than Laghiyastraya. As for Pariksämukha its wording was crystal clear in its import, though in the course of commenting on even it Prabhācandra had to employ some ingenuity while introducing this or that piece of independent philosophical discussions. But that again is not an important point. For Prameyakamalamārtanda is virtually a collection of certain independent philosophical discussions Prabhācandra has chosen to undertake and from that point of view it matters little as to which of them occupies which part of the text.
(B) ABHAYADEVA Abhayadeva was the first Svetāmbara author who seriously realised the need for doing something that might stand comparison to the performance of his great Digambara predecessors. The striking point is that the realisation did not occur to an earlier Ŝvetāmbara author but let us not pursue it further. Abhayadeva in essence did to Siddhasena's Sanmati what Prabhacandra did to Akalanka's Laghiyastraya, viz. to use the original text as a pretext for undertaking certain independent philosophical discussions. That is why Abhayadeva, like Prabhācandra, has not much to say by way of explaining the words of the original text. But a difference that obtains between the two cases is worth noting. Akalanka was recent author who
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